news media
mikethemadbiologist | October 8, 2007Both Kevin Drum and digby argue that Senator Clinton's 'electability' problem is due to Republican sliming and isn't really a factor. Drum:
Hillary, by contrast, is polarizing not because she wants to be, but because the right-wing attack machine made her that way. She's "polarizing" only because a certain deranged slice of conservative nutjobs detest her.
And guess what? By this standard, Jimmy Carter is polarizing. Bill Clinton is polarizing. Al Gore is polarizing. John Kerry is polarizing. Do you see the trend here?
There are plenty of good reasons to oppose Hillary Clinton. But anyone…
mikethemadbiologist | September 30, 2007Glenn Greenwald asks:
One of the more baffling aspects of "political journalism" in the United States is the mind-numbing obsession which most of the political press has with "horse race" analysis.
...the major newsweeklies -- or view any of the cable news shows [are] filled with the analysts who think they are the super-sophisticated insider political types and virtually all they ever do, literally, is prattle on in the most speculative and gossipy manner about which presidential candidates are winning and losing.
Aside from all the other obvious critiques made of this practice, the…
mikethemadbiologist | September 20, 2007...most good science reporters like science. Most political reporters don't like governance.
One of the important things about going to scientific conferences for scientists is 'catching up.' While part of that is genuine social interaction with friends (when else are you going to see friends from graduate school who now have jobs on the opposite coast?), there's also a lot of gossipy-type information exchange: who has a new job, what jobs are coming open, difficulties in getting tenure or funding, and so on. Sometimes, there's even juicy gossip that is utterly personal (not that one…
mikethemadbiologist | September 14, 2007...by scientists, not journalists. From Genomicron:
A primary tenet of journalism is that it present a balanced view of the story and not make any subjective judgments. The fact that the scientific community has semi-objective methods for determining the reliability of claims (such as peer review and the requirement of repeatably demonstrable evidence) should not impinge on this. It is therefore important to present "both sides" of every story, even if one side lacks any empirical support and is populated only by a tiny minority of scientists (or better yet, denialists and cranks).
It's not…
mikethemadbiologist | September 13, 2007Genomicron has a great satirical post about how to write a bad science story. It's worth a read. So, I ask you, readers, which of these ten journalistic 'sins' is the worst:
http://genomicron.blogspot.com/2007/09/anatomy-of-bad-science-story.html
1. Choose your subject matter to be as amenable to sensationalism as possible.
2. Use a catchy headline, especially if it will undermine the story's credibility.
3. Overstate the significance and novelty of the work.
4. Distort the history of the field and oversimplify the views of scientists.
5. Remember that controversy sells, and everyone loves…
mikethemadbiologist | September 10, 2007This quote from Fred Kaplan's Slate article has left me gobsmacked:
At the same time, nearly all politicians, including most Democrats, have come out against a total withdrawal and have recognized that we will have some military presence in Iraq for a long time to come.
Hold that thought, because I want to remind you of some polling data I discussed a couple of weeks ago:
From Strategic Vision, a Republican polling firm:
4. Do you favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months? (Republicans Only)
Yes 51%
No 39%
Undecided 10%
Not beginning a withdrawal…
mikethemadbiologist | August 27, 2007Glenn Greenwald catches Washington Post political 'reporter' Anne Kornblut impugning the patriotism of millions of Democrats:
The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut, analyzing the differences between Republicans and Democrats on Iraq, explained on Tuesday night's Hardball:
ANNE KORNBLUT, "THE WASHINGTON POST": It remains, especially in Democratic crowds, the number-one issue. There is no applause line that gets a bigger response when you're out with Senator Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, than when they say the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to start ending this war in…
mikethemadbiologist | August 21, 2007
Bob Somerby noticed something during the most recent Democratic presidential debate (and it's so hard to keep track of them all):
But we were especially struck by a decision made during the Democratic debate. Omigod! A real discussion had broken out about the way to exit Iraq! It was by far the most intelligent discussion we've seen in any debate this year; the hopefuls were even beginning to question each other about their respective views. But our press corps flees intelligent discourse as bats avoid exposure to light. Abruptly, George Stephanopoulos brought the discussion to a halt so…
mikethemadbiologist | August 20, 2007Josh Marshall describes his correspondence with a journalism professor who bashed blogs this weekend in The LA Times. Marshall writes:
There's certainly no end of blog pontificating fueled by puffed-up self-assertion rather than facts. But Skube's piece reads with a vagueness that suggests he has less than a passing familiarity with the topic at issue....
Now, whether we do any quality reporting at TPM is a matter of opinion. And everyone is entitled to theirs. So against my better judgment, I sent Skube an email telling him that I found it hard to believe he was very familiar with TPM if he…
mikethemadbiologist | August 6, 2007For the political articles only, I swear. What I can't figure out is howa writer for Esquire can see through all the bullsht that the supposedly Very Serious People can't. Here's what was the most trechant part for me (italics mine):
On May 15, Mike Huckabee, a greasy Rotarian gasbag from Arkansas, made a funny. Speaking at a debate with the other Republican presidential contenders, Huckabee said of the Congress that it had "spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop." This nasty little bit solicited gales of laughter from the studio audience and almost unalloyed approval from the…
mikethemadbiologist | July 25, 2007It isn't always the message, sometimes it's the medium. Or the media actually. Framing only goes so far. Often, getting your message out there comes down to schmoozing, intimidation, and hard work. This applies to politics and science. The Daily Howler rebuts neuroscientist Drew Westen's take on the Bush-Gore debates of 2000 in Westen's book,The Political Brain
(italics mine):
For example, he explains what he thinks Gore should have said at several points in the Bush-Gore debates. We've spent a lot of time on the incidents he discusses; we think his examples are highly salient. But we'…
mikethemadbiologist | July 19, 2007I raise the question, which has rattled around in my head for a while, after reading two posts, one by ScienceBlogling Tim Lambert, and one by Scott Lemieux. Tim connects the dots of the Gore-Chilean sea bass non-story:
Allow me to connect some dots here. How did the story get from People into an Australian tabloid? And how did it get from there to Jake Tapper?
I did a Factiva search and found that this was the first time that the Daily Telegraph had ever printed an opinion piece from the Humane Society International, so I called Rebecca Keeble and asked her about the genesis of the piece.…
mikethemadbiologist | July 19, 2007It's bad enough when the mainstream media engages in ersatz psychology and semiotics. It's even worse when this pseudoanalysis has a bias--it's like Colbert's truthiness, except that it's not funny (italics mine):
Consider, then, the cheesesteak.
While running for president, John Kerry ordered a cheesesteak with Swiss cheese. The sane response to that fact is, of course, "who cares?" The media response was to mock Kerry for ordering the "wrong" cheese. Supposedly, it reinforced his "elitist" image. Kerry's cheesesteak order continues to draw media attention years later.
During that same…
mikethemadbiologist | July 16, 2007I was reading this fascinating article about Japan's adoption in 2009 of a jury system, when it struck me: the Pundits on the Potomac would love to have a society like this. From the NY Times:
Japan is preparing to adopt a jury-style system in its courts in 2009, the most significant change in its criminal justice system since the postwar American occupation. But for it to work, the Japanese must first overcome some deep-rooted cultural obstacles: a reluctance to express opinions in public, to argue with one another and to question authority.
To win over a skeptical public, Japan's…
mikethemadbiologist | July 16, 2007Matt Bai doesn't get that. In the NY Times Magazine, Bai writes (italics mine):
The emergence of the Internet age has been accompanied, in general, by a steady devaluing of expertise. A generation ago, you went to the doctor to find out about the pain in your knee; now you go to WebMD, diagnose it yourself and tell him what medicines you want. People used to trust stockbrokers and insurance agents; now they buy and sell at E*Trade and compare policies online. American voters who once looked to newspaper columnists for guidance on politics now blog their own idle punditry. Suddenly,…
mikethemadbiologist | July 11, 2007Something very interesting in the news about the news--the Chicago Sun has publicly announced its decision to make its op-ed page more liberal. From Editor and Publisher:
The tabloid that shifted toward political conservatism under the brief ownership of Rupert Murdoch more than two decades ago now says that it is "rethinking our stance on several issues, including the most pressing issue facing Americans today: Bush's war in Iraq."
Under marching orders from Publisher John Cruickshank and Editor in Chief Michael Cooke, new Editorial Page Editor Cheryl L. Reed introduced a new Commentary…
mikethemadbiologist | July 8, 2007Consider this the Fouad Ajami edition. Some of you may have read that Ajami compared Scooter Libby to fallen U.S. soldiers in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Recently, Ajami tried to defend his statements on MSNBC's Hardball. Before you click away for the video, several meta-observations (since Ajami's claim is offensive, ludicrous, and not worth refuting):
1) This is the first time I can remember that a conservative columnist got dogpiled enough to actually shift the 'debate.' They didn't bring Ajami on the show to defend Libby, but to defend himself (not that the dumb summabitch doesn't…
mikethemadbiologist | July 2, 2007...this is why you should be nice to your employees. Talk show banshee Nancy Grace got punked by her own producer (the last third still has me giggling). I'm guessing the producer has another job lined up and decided to give Grace a 'goodbye present':
That's just nasty. CNN at its finest. Now, if only David Broder could get the same treatment....
mikethemadbiologist | June 20, 2007Having been encouraged by ScienceBlogling John Wilkins, I'm going to follow up on my post about science journalism, and, no doubt, get myself into further trouble. First, though, I want to clarify some points.
Without going into specific detail, I work for a non-profit organization that deals with infectious disease. My primary job--and the one that pays my bills and keeps the lights on--is to conduct and develop research projects. However, I'm also the primary person who deals with questions about the 'science' of our issue (we also have clinical and economic experts). An average day is…
mikethemadbiologist | June 18, 2007Over at Aetiology, Tara has an interesting post about interview requests from journalists. Since part of my job is to deal with journalists, I thought I would offer some thoughts.
First, Tara's absolutely right: don't bother scientists at scientific meetings. We have far too much to do as it is. If you don't get that, you're probably not very knowledgeable about science--which doesn't make us inclined to want to talk to you. Here's my list of thoughts and advice on the subject.
How does talking to you solve any of my problems?
If you call me out of the blue and ask to speak with me,…